![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby Might as well do this in one go.
Just finished: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. This was really good. Beautifully written, very engrossing, definitely in my top two gendercide novels (a genre I don't like, so there are really only two). I have two main critiques. 1) There would, presumably, be trans men and nonbinary people. Unless the mechanism of the virus was hormonal rather than chromosomal, in which case there would be trans women. (And if they ran out of hormones, they could use mare piss, because they have horses). Or maybe it's identity-based, in which case the virus only spares cis lesbians? I dunno. It just seemed like an oversight. Though this book is from the early 90s when even writing about cis lesbians was edgier than most publishers would touch, but it's the one thing that makes it a product of its time. 2) Someone on Goodreads raised the issue that the characters don't really act in ways that are compatible with their jobs. Which I think is not true for Marghe—she is as conflicted as any anthropologist I've ever men—but is maybe the case for Danner, who does not act like a soldier very much at all. That said, the prose and the sociological worldbuilding and the slow build of the relationships more than overcome these two critiques.
Currently reading: Guardian (Zhen Hun), Vol. 1 by Priest. Finally, a decent translation that is readable! I read the fan translation because I loved the show and wanted to read the original, but it was honestly pretty unreadable even though I respected the effort. This is much better, although the prose is not exactly wonderful. Still, a lot more of the humour comes through and there are footnotes that explain some of the cultural things that I missed in both the show and the fan translation. I do miss Daqing's name translating to "Dat Fat Fuq" (Daqing is a cat, if you haven't read/watched it). It is very fun, especially after some of the heavier things I've been reading lately.
Okay, here's my roundup of the best books I read in 2023. I read a lot less fiction and a lot more non-fiction than I normally do, for reasons of people making me read a lot of non-fiction. But hey, I made my Goodreads goal of 60 books. These are brief because I spent a lot of time in my book posts raving for ages about my favourite books.
Fiction:
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. This is a story about a successful worldwide revolution, told through mock interviews with survivors and their descendants. Reading it, I was aware of just how rarely a revolution succeeds in any kind of speculative fiction, and even rarer still is a depiction of what comes after. This gets down to the nitty gritty of both how the new society is structured, and the trauma and healing process of those who lived through the uprising.
Buffalo Is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel. I loved these short stories, all of which tackle Métis futurism and Indigenous futurisms in general. Some of the most clever speculative fiction I've read in awhile.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. This one broke me. I did not expect it to break me. It's ostensibly about videogame designers and really about the bonds formed and hardships endured during creative collaboration.
Prophet by Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché. This is one of those books I wish I'd written. There's a depth to the characters' histories that echoes both the plot of weaponized nostalgia and the theme of how memory and history is constructed to reinforce power, and it has some of the most beautiful slow-burn character work I've read since, well, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Non-fiction:
A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto by China Miéville. I love a deep dive, and this is a really great deep dive into a short but immensely important historical text. Miéville knows his Marx, obviously, and spends a lot of time analyzing the difference between propaganda and analysis in a way that I think is. Well. Very instructive for Marxists.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher. Even though this was written some time ago, you could not find a better analysis of why our current political and economic climate is the way it is. Fisher's exploration of the limits of the neoliberal imagination is a must-read.
And my favourite books of the year:
Non-fiction: How To Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm. Probably the most important book about fighting the climate catastrophe I've ever read. It's an antidote to both climate denialism and climate despair; it's about how you keep up the struggle when the problems are so much bigger than you could solve and hope is unrealistic.
Fiction: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. This is just a stunning, criminally underrated book. It's spectacular fantasy and it's spectacular literature, weaving a haunting love story through a narrative about myth, history, power, and rebellion. It's haunting and poetic and you should go read it because it will rewire your brainmeats.
Just finished: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. This was really good. Beautifully written, very engrossing, definitely in my top two gendercide novels (a genre I don't like, so there are really only two). I have two main critiques. 1) There would, presumably, be trans men and nonbinary people. Unless the mechanism of the virus was hormonal rather than chromosomal, in which case there would be trans women. (And if they ran out of hormones, they could use mare piss, because they have horses). Or maybe it's identity-based, in which case the virus only spares cis lesbians? I dunno. It just seemed like an oversight. Though this book is from the early 90s when even writing about cis lesbians was edgier than most publishers would touch, but it's the one thing that makes it a product of its time. 2) Someone on Goodreads raised the issue that the characters don't really act in ways that are compatible with their jobs. Which I think is not true for Marghe—she is as conflicted as any anthropologist I've ever men—but is maybe the case for Danner, who does not act like a soldier very much at all. That said, the prose and the sociological worldbuilding and the slow build of the relationships more than overcome these two critiques.
Currently reading: Guardian (Zhen Hun), Vol. 1 by Priest. Finally, a decent translation that is readable! I read the fan translation because I loved the show and wanted to read the original, but it was honestly pretty unreadable even though I respected the effort. This is much better, although the prose is not exactly wonderful. Still, a lot more of the humour comes through and there are footnotes that explain some of the cultural things that I missed in both the show and the fan translation. I do miss Daqing's name translating to "Dat Fat Fuq" (Daqing is a cat, if you haven't read/watched it). It is very fun, especially after some of the heavier things I've been reading lately.
Okay, here's my roundup of the best books I read in 2023. I read a lot less fiction and a lot more non-fiction than I normally do, for reasons of people making me read a lot of non-fiction. But hey, I made my Goodreads goal of 60 books. These are brief because I spent a lot of time in my book posts raving for ages about my favourite books.
Fiction:
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. This is a story about a successful worldwide revolution, told through mock interviews with survivors and their descendants. Reading it, I was aware of just how rarely a revolution succeeds in any kind of speculative fiction, and even rarer still is a depiction of what comes after. This gets down to the nitty gritty of both how the new society is structured, and the trauma and healing process of those who lived through the uprising.
Buffalo Is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel. I loved these short stories, all of which tackle Métis futurism and Indigenous futurisms in general. Some of the most clever speculative fiction I've read in awhile.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. This one broke me. I did not expect it to break me. It's ostensibly about videogame designers and really about the bonds formed and hardships endured during creative collaboration.
Prophet by Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché. This is one of those books I wish I'd written. There's a depth to the characters' histories that echoes both the plot of weaponized nostalgia and the theme of how memory and history is constructed to reinforce power, and it has some of the most beautiful slow-burn character work I've read since, well, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Non-fiction:
A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto by China Miéville. I love a deep dive, and this is a really great deep dive into a short but immensely important historical text. Miéville knows his Marx, obviously, and spends a lot of time analyzing the difference between propaganda and analysis in a way that I think is. Well. Very instructive for Marxists.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher. Even though this was written some time ago, you could not find a better analysis of why our current political and economic climate is the way it is. Fisher's exploration of the limits of the neoliberal imagination is a must-read.
And my favourite books of the year:
Non-fiction: How To Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm. Probably the most important book about fighting the climate catastrophe I've ever read. It's an antidote to both climate denialism and climate despair; it's about how you keep up the struggle when the problems are so much bigger than you could solve and hope is unrealistic.
Fiction: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. This is just a stunning, criminally underrated book. It's spectacular fantasy and it's spectacular literature, weaving a haunting love story through a narrative about myth, history, power, and rebellion. It's haunting and poetic and you should go read it because it will rewire your brainmeats.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-27 10:12 pm (UTC)also ahhhh i have 3 books i need to finish before the end of the year! 🙀
no subject
Date: 2023-12-27 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-27 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-28 11:17 am (UTC)Indeed. :P
Some typos are worth chucking over.
I don't recall you mentioning "The Spear Cuts Through Water" during the year (that may have more to do with my brain), but it is cheap enough I have added it to my wish list despite the description making me roll my eyes.
Between your recommendation and the imprint... I've bought worse on less. :P
no subject
Date: 2023-12-28 01:22 pm (UTC)It's brilliant, but one of those books that's hard to describe in terms of the plot vs. why it's actually good.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-28 01:32 pm (UTC)And, my laptop is missing keys, so I don't judge.
I've been soured on fantasy in the past week, but I'm always open to new ideas.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 02:24 pm (UTC)God, I just want to roll around in the character work, and also how the memories and flashbacks and characters telling each other about their traumatic backstories gets used. Not just the big reveals but also the little snippets that don't obviously tie into something else, like Rao's memory of the oleander hawk moth.
I was also reminded of something I noticed about later seasons' Black Sails, where you have things like Flint teaching Silver to sword-fight which feel intensely fanficcy in the specific sense that they're interstitial moments that don't necessarily drive the plot forwards but which allow character and relationship stuff time to breathe, and are therefore the things that TV canon often doesn't have time for but fanfic rolls around in. Prophet's extremely good with interstitials, the moments when the characters are getting a meal or in the car or getting ready for bed and what the idle conversations then can tell you about the characters and their dynamic.
Whih is impressive given that it also feels very fast-moving.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 02:29 pm (UTC)Belated comment is belated
Date: 2024-02-27 04:40 pm (UTC)https://letteredlettered.tumblr.com/post/179482907171/on-fanfic-emotional-continuity
Money quote:
The thing about ‘plot’ in fic is that it tends to ebb and flow naturally. There’s not the same high speed, race to the finish you’d get from a good action movie. There’s no stop and start of side plots you get in TV genre shows. The best fic plot slides from big event to restful evening to frantic activity to shared meals and squabbles and back, and it gives equal time and attention and detail to each of these things.
Re: Belated comment is belated
Date: 2024-02-28 12:04 am (UTC)